Different Girls by Various

V >> Various >> Different Girls

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13

"I don't believe mother'll ask either of 'em to the wedding," said she.

When Mrs. Robinson entered, Esther stood expectant and fearful by the
table. Her mother drew up a chair and reached for the bread.

"I didn't stop anywhere for supper. You've had yours, 'ain't you?"

The girl nodded.

"Joe come?"

"He just left."

But Mrs. Robinson was not to be hurried into divulging the result of her
calls. She remained massively mysterious. Esther began to wish she had
not hurried Joe off so unceremoniously. After her first cup of tea,
however, her mother asked for a slip of paper and a pencil. "I want that
pencil in my machine drawer, that writes black, and any kind of paper'll
do," she said.

Esther brought them; then she took up her sewing. She was not without a
certain self-restraint. Mrs. Robinson, between her sips of tea, wrote.
The soft gurgle of her drinking annoyed Esther, and she had a tingling
desire to snatch the paper. After a last misdirected placing of her cup
in her plate, however, her mother looked up and smiled triumphantly.

"I guess we'll have to plan something different than boxes of cake.
Listen to this; Mis' Lawrence--No, I won't read that yet. Mis'
Manning--I went in there because I thought about her not inviting you
when she gave that library party--one salt and pepper with rose-buds
painted on 'em."

Esther leaned forward; her face was crimson.

"You needn't look so," remonstrated her mother. "It was all I could do
to keep from laughing at the way she acted. I just mentioned that we
were only goin' to invite those you were indebted to, and she went and
fetched out that salt and pepper. I believe she said they was intended
in the first place for some relative that didn't git married in the
end."

The girl made an inarticulate noise in her throat. Her mother continued,
in a loud, impressive tone:

"Mis' Stetson--something worked. She hasn't quite decided what, but
she's goin' to let me know about it. Jane Watson--"

"You didn't go _there_, mother!"

Mrs. Robinson treated her daughter to a contemptuous look. "I guess I've
got sense. Jane was at Mis' Stetson's, and when I came away she went
along with me, and insisted that I should stop and see some
lamp-lighters she'd got to copy from--those paper balls. She seemed
afraid a string of those wouldn't be enough, but I told her how pretty
they was, and how much you'd be pleased."

"I guess I'll think a good deal more of 'em than I will of Mis'
Manning's salt and pepper." Esther was very near tears.

"Next I went to the Rogerses, and they've about concluded to give you a
lamp; and they can afford to. Then that's all the places I've been,
except to Mis' Lawrence's, and she"--Mrs. Robinson paused for
emphasis--"she's goin' to give you a silver _tea-set_!"

Esther looked at her mother, her red lips apart.

"That was the first place I called, and I said pretty plain what I was
gittin' at; but after I knew about the water-set, that settled what kind
of weddin' we'd have."

* * * * *

But the next morning the world looked different. Her rheumatic foot
ached, and that always affected her temper; but when they sat down to
sew, the real cause of her irascibleness came out.

"Mis' Lawrence wa'n't any more civil than she need be," she remarked. "I
guess she'd decided she'd got to do something, being related to Joe. She
said she supposed you were expecting a good many presents; and I said
no, you didn't look for many, and there were some that you'd done a good
deal for that you knew better than to expect anything from. I was mad.
Then she turned kind of red, and mentioned about the water-set."

And in the afternoon a young girl acquaintance added to Esther's
perturbation. "I just met Susan Rogers," she confided to the other, "and
she said they hated to give that lamp, but they supposed they were in
for it."

Esther was not herself for some days. All her pretty dreams were blotted
out, and a morbid embarrassment took hold of her; but she was roused to
something like her old interest when the presents began to come in and
she saw her mother's active preparations for the wedding--the more so as
over the village seemed to have spread a pleasant excitement concerning
the event. Presents arrived from unexpected sources, so that
invitations had to be sent afterwards to the givers. Women who had
never crossed the Robinson threshold came now like Hindoo gift-bearers
before some deity whom they wished to propitiate. Meeting there, they
exchanged droll, half-deprecating glances. Mrs. Robinson's calls had
formed the subject of much laughing comment; but weddings were not
common in Marshfield, and the desire to be bidden to this one was
universal; it spread like an epidemic.

Mrs. Robinson was at first elated. She overlooked the matter of
duplicates, and accepted graciously every article that was
tendered--from a patch-work quilt to a hem-stitched handkerchief. "You
can't have too many of some things," she remarked to Esther. But later
she reversed this statement. Match-safes, photograph-frames, and pretty
nothings accumulated to an alarming extent.

"Now that's the last pin-cushion you're goin' to take," she declared, as
she returned from answering a call at the door one evening. "There's
fourteen in the parlor now. Some folks seem to have gone crazy on
pin-cushions."

She grew confused, and the next day she went into the parlor, which,
owing to the nature of the display, resembled a booth at a church fair,
and made an accurate list of the articles received. When she emerged,
her large, handsome face was quite flushed.

"Little wabbly, fall-down things, most of 'em. It'll take you a week to
dust your house if you have all those things standin' round."

"Well, I ain't goin' to put none of 'em away," declared Esther. "I like
ornaments."

"Glad you do; you've got enough of 'em, land knows. _Ornaments!_" The
very word seemed to incense her. "I guess you'll find there's something
needed besides _ornaments_ when you come right down to livin'. For one
thing, you're awful short of dishes and bedding, and you can't ever have
no company--unless," she added, with withering sarcasm, "you give 'em
little vases to drink out of, and put 'em to bed under a picture-drape,
with a pin-cushion or a scent-bag for a piller."

And from that time Mrs. Robinson accepted no gift without first
consulting her list. It became known that she looked upon useful
articles with favor, and brooms and flat-irons and bright tinware
arrived constantly. Then it was that the heterogeneous collection began
to pall upon Esther. The water-set had not yet been presented, but its
magnificence grew upon her, and she persuaded Joe to get a
spindle-legged stand on which to place it, although he could not furnish
the cottage until October, and had gone in debt for the few necessary
things. She pictured the combination first in one corner of the little
parlor, then another, finally in a window where it could be seen, from
the road.

Esther's standards did not vary greatly from her mother's, but she had a
bewildered sense that they were somehow stepping from the beaten track
of custom. On one or two points, however, she was firm. The few novels
that had come within her reach she had conned faithfully. Thus, even
before she had a lover, she had decided that the most impressive hour
for a wedding was sunrise, and had arranged the procession which was to
wend its way towards the church. And in these matters her mother,
respecting her superior judgment, stood stanchly by her.

Nevertheless, when the eventful morning arrived she was bitterly
disappointed. She had set her heart on having the church bell rung, and
overlooked the fact that the meeting-house bell was cracked, till Joe
reminded her. Then the weather was unexpectedly chilly. A damp fog, not
yet dispersed by the sun, hung over the barely awakened village, and the
little flower-girl shivered. She had a shawl pinned about her, and when
the procession was fairly started she tripped over it, and there was a
halt while she gathered up the roses and geraniums in her little
trembling hands and thrust them back into the basket. Celia Smith
tittered. Celia was the bridesmaid, and was accompanied by Joe's friend,
red-headed Harry Baker; and Mrs. Robinson and Uncle Jonas, who were far
behind, made the most of the delay. Mrs. Robinson often explained that
she was not a "good walker," and her brother-in-law tried jocularly to
help her along, although he used a cane himself. His weather-beaten old
face was beaming, but it was as though the smiles were set between the
wrinkles, for he kept his mouth sober. He had a flower in his
button-hole, which gave him a festive air, despite the fact that his
clothes were distinctly untidy. Several buttons were off: he had no wife
to keep them sewed on.

Esther had given but one glance at him. Her head under its lace veil
bent lower and lower. The flounces of her skirt stood out about her
like the delicate bell of a hollyhock; she followed the way falteringly.
Joe, his young eyes radiant, inclined his curly head towards her, but
she did not heed him. The little procession was as an awkward garment
which hampered and abashed her; but just as they reached the church the
sun crept above the tree-tops, and from the bleakness of dawn the whole
scene warmed into the glorious beauty of a June day. The guests lost
their aspect of chilled waiting; Esther caught their admiring glances.
For one brief moment her triumph was complete; the next she had
overstepped its bounds. She went forward scarcely touching Joe's arm.
Her great desire became a definite purpose. She whispered to a member of
her Sunday-school class, a little fellow. He looked at her wonderingly
at first, then darted forward and grasped the rope which dangled down in
a corner of the vestibule. He pulled with a will, but even as the old
bell responded with a hoarse clank, his arms jerked upward, and with
curls flying and fat legs extended he ascended straight to the ceiling.

"Oh, suz, the Lord's taking him right up!" shrieked an old woman, the
sepulchral explanation of the broken bell but serving to intensify her
terror; and there were others who refused to understand, even when his
sister caught him by the heels. She was very white, and she shook him
before she set him down. Too scared to realize where he was, he fought
her, his little face quite red, and his blouse strained up so that it
revealed the girth of his round little body in its knitted undershirt.

"Le' me go," he whimpered; "she telled me to do it."

His words broke through the general amazement like a stone through the
icy surface of a stream. The guests gave way to mirth. Some of the young
girls averted their faces; they could not look at Esther. The matrons
tilted their bonneted heads towards one another and shook softly. "I
thought at first it might be a part of the show," whispered one, "but I
guess it wasn't planned."

Esther was conscious of every whisper and every glance; shame seemed to
engulf her, but she entered the church holding her head high. When they
emerged into the sunshine again, she would have been glad to run away,
but she was forced to pause while her mother made an announcement.

"The refreshments will be ready by ten," she said, "and as we calculate
to keep the tables runnin' all day, those that can't come one time can
come another."

After which there was a little rice-throwing, and the young couple
departed. The frolic partly revived Esther's spirits; but her mother,
toiling heavily along with a hard day's work before her, was inclined to
speak her mind. Her brother-in-law, however, restrained her.

"Seems to me I never seen anything quite so cute as that little feller
a-ringin' that bell for the weddin'. Who put him up to it, anyhow?"

"Why, Esther. She was so set on havin' a 'chime,' as she called it."

"Well, it was a real good idee! A _real_ good idee!" and he kept
repeating the phrase as though in a perfect ecstasy of appreciation.

When Esther reached home, she and Joe arranged the tables in the side
yard, but when the first guest turned in at the gate her mother sent her
to the house. "Now you go into the parlor and rest. You can just as well
sit under that dove as stand under it," she said.

The girl started listlessly to obey, but the next words revived her like
wine:

"I declare it's Mis' Lawrence, and she's bringing that water-set; she
hung on to it till the last minit."

Esther flew to her chamber and donned her veil, which she had laid
aside, then sped down-stairs; but when she passed through the parlor she
put her hands over her eyes: she wanted to look at the water-set first
with Joe. He was no longer helping her mother, and she fluttered about
looking for him. The rooms would soon be crowded, and then there would
be no opportunity to examine the wonderful gift.

She darted down a foot-path that crossed the yard diagonally. It led to
a gap in the stone-wall which opened on a lane. Esther and Joe had been
in the habit of walking here of an evening. It was scarcely more than a
grassy way overhung by leaning branches of old fruit trees, but it was a
short-cut to the cottage Joe had rented. Now Esther's feet, of their own
volition, carried her here. She slid through the opening. "Joe!" she
called, and her voice had the tremulous cadence of a bird summoning its
mate; but it died away in a little smothered cry, for not a rod away was
Joe, and sitting on a large stone was Sarah Norton. They had their backs
towards her, and were engaged in such an earnest conversation that they
did not hear her. Sarah's shoulders moved with her quick breathing; she
had a hand on Joe's arm. Esther stood staring, her thin draperies
circling about her, and her childish face pale. Then she turned, with a
swift impulse to escape, but again she paused, her eyes riveted in the
opposite direction. From where she stood the back door of her future
home was visible, and two men were carrying out furniture. Involuntarily
she opened her lips to call Joe, but no sound came. Yes, they had the
bureau; they would probably take the spindle-legged stand next. A strong
protective instinct is part of possession, and to Esther that sight was
as a magnet to steel. Down the grassy lane she sped, but so lightly that
the couple by the wall were as unobservant of her as they were of the
wind stirring the long grass.

Sarah Norton rose. "I run every step of the way to get here in time.
Please, Joe!" she panted.

He shook his head. "It's real kind of you and your mother, Sarah, but I
guess I ain't going to touch any of the money you worked for and earned,
and I can't help but think, when I talk to Lanham--"

"I tell you, you can't reason with him in his state!"

"Well, I'll raise it somehow."

"You'll have to be quick about it, then," she returned, concisely.
"He'll be here in a few minutes, and it's cash down for the first three
months, or he'll let the other party have it."

"But he promised--"

"That don't make any difference. He's drunk, and he thought father'd
offer to make you an advance; but father just told him to come down
here, that you were being married, and say he'd poke all your things out
in the road without you paid."

The young man turned. Sarah blocked his way. She was a tall,
good-looking girl, somewhat older than Joe, and she looked straight up
into his face.

"See here, Joe; you know what makes father act so, and so do I, and so
does mother, and mother and I want you should take this money; it'll
make us feel better." Sarah flushed, but she looked at him as directly
as if she had been his sister.

Joe felt an admiration for her that was almost reverence. It carried him
for the moment beyond the consideration of his own predicament.

"No, I don't know what makes him act so either," he cried, hotly. "Oh
Lord, Sarah, you sha'n't say such a thing!"

She interrupted him. "Won't you take it?"

He turned again: "You're just as good as you can be, but I can manage
some way."

"I'll watch for Lanham," she answered, quietly, "and keep him talking as
long as I can. He's just drunk enough to make a scene."

Half-way to the house, Joe met Harry Barker.

"What did she want?" he inquired, curiously.

When Joe told him he plunged into his pocket and drew out two dollars,
then offered to go among the young fellows and collect the balance of
the amount, but Joe caught hold of him.

"Think of something else."

"I could explain to the boys--"

"You go and ask Mrs. Lawrence if she won't step out on the porch," the
other commanded; "she's my great-aunt, and I never asked anything of her
before."

But Mrs. Lawrence was not sympathetic. She told Joe flatly that she
never lent money, and that the water-set was as much as she could afford
to give. "It ain't paid for, though," she added; "and if you'd rather
have the money, I suppose I can send it back. But seems to me I
shouldn't have been in such an awful hurry to git married; I should 'a'
waited a month or so, till I had something to git married on. But you're
just like your father--never had no calculation. Do you want I should
return that silver?"

Joe hesitated. It was an easy way out of the difficulty. Then a vision
of Esther rose before him, and the innocent preparations she had been
making for the display of the gift; "No," he answered, shortly. And Mrs.
Lawrence, with a shake of the shoulders as though she threw off all
responsibility in her young relative's affairs, bustled away. "I'm going
to keep that water-set if everything else has to go," he declared to the
astonished Harry. "Let 'em set me out in the road; I guess I'll git
along." He had a humorous vision of himself and Esther trudging forth,
with the water-set between them, to seek their fortune.

He flung himself from the porch, and was confronted by Jonas Ingram. The
old fellow emerged from behind a lilac-bush with a guilty yet excited
air.

"Young man, I ain't given to eaves-dropping, but I was strollin' along
here and I heered it all; and as I was calculatin' to give my niece a
present--" He broke off and laid a hand on Joe's arm. "Where is that
dod-blasted fool of a Lanham? I'll pay him; then I'll break every bone
in his dum body!" he exclaimed, waxing profane. "Come here disturbin'
decent folks' weddin's! Where is he?"

He started off down the path, striking out savagely with his stick. Joe
watched him a moment, then put after him, and Harry Barker followed.

"If this ain't the liveliest weddin'!"

Nevertheless, he was disappointed in his expectations of an encounter.
When the trio emerged through the gap in the wall they found only Sarah
Norton awaiting them.

"Lanham's come and gone," she announced. "No, I didn't give him a thing,
except a piece of my mind," she answered, in response to a look from
Joe. "I told him that he was acting like a fool; that father was in for
a thousand dollars to you in the fall, and that you would pay then, as
you promised, and that he'd better clear out."

"Oh, if I could jest git a holt of him!" muttered Jonas Ingram.

"That seemed to sober him," continued the girl; "but he said he wasn't
the only one that had got scared; that Merrill was going for his tables
and chairs; but Lanham said he'd run up to the cottage, and if he was
there, he'd send him off. You see, father threw out as if he wasn't
owing you anything," she added, in a lower voice, "and that's what
stirred 'em up."

Joe turned white, in a sudden heat of anger--the first he had shown,
"I'll stir him--" he began; then his eyes met hers. He reddened. "Oh,
Sarah, I'm ever so much obliged to you!"

"It was nothing. I guess it was lucky I wasn't invited to the wedding,
though." She laughed, and started away, leaving Joe abashed. She glanced
back. "I hope none of this foolishness'll reach Mis' Elsworth's ears,"
she called, in a friendly voice.

"I hope it won't," muttered Joe, fervently, and stood watching her till
the old man pulled his sleeve.

"Lanham may not keep his word to the girl. Best go down there, hadn't
we?"

The young man made no answer, but turned and ran. He longed for some one
to wreak vengeance on. The other two had difficulty in keeping up with
him. The first object that attracted their attention was the bureau. It
was standing beside the back steps. Joe tried the door; it was
fastened. He drew forth the key and fitted it into the lock, but still
the door did not yield. He turned and faced the others. "_Some one's in
there!_"

Jonas Ingram broke forth into an oath. He shook his cane at the house.

"Some one's in there, and they've got the door bolted on the inside,"
continued Joe. His voice had a strange sound even to himself. He seemed
to be looking on at his own wrath. He strode around to a window, but the
blinds were closed; the blinds were closed all over the house; every
door was barred. Whoever was inside was in utter darkness. Joe came back
and gave the door a violent shake; then they all listened, but only the
pecking of a hen along the walk broke the silence.

"I'll get a crowbar," suggested Harry, scowling in the fierce sunlight.
Jonas Ingram stood with his hair blowing out from under his hat and his
stick grasped firmly in his gnarled old hand. He was all ready to
strike. His chin was thrust out rigidly. They both pressed close to Joe,
but he did not heed them. He put one shoulder against a panel; every
muscle was set.

"Whoever you are, if I have to break this door down--"

There was a soft commotion on the inside and the bolt was drawn. Joe,
with the other two at his heels, fairly burst into the darkened place,
just in time to see a white figure dart across the room and cast itself
in a corner. For an instant they could only blink. The figure wrapped
its white arms about some object.

"You can have everything but this table; you can't have--this." The
words ended in a frightened sob.

"_Esther!_"

"_Oh, Joe!_" She struggled to her feet, then shrank back against the
wall. "Oh, I didn't know it was you. Go 'way! go 'way!"

"Why, Esther, what do you mean?" He started towards her, but she turned
on him.

"Where is she?"

"Where's who?"

She did not reply, but standing against the wall, she stared at him with
a passionate scorn.

"You don't mean Sarah Norton?" asked Joe, slowly. Esther quivered. "Why,
she came to tell me of the trouble her father was trying to get me into.
But how did you come here, Esther? How did you know anything about it?"

She did not answer. Her head sank.

"How did you, Esther?"

"I saw--you in the lane," she faltered, then caught up her veil as
though it had been a pinafore. Joe went up to her, and Jonas Ingram took
hold of Harry Barker, and the two stepped outside, but not out of
ear-shot; they were still curious. They could hear Esther's sobbing
voice at intervals. "I tried to make 'em stop, but they wouldn't, and I
slipped in past 'em and bolted the door; and when you came, I thought it
was them--and, oh! ain't they our things, Joe?"

The old man thrust his head in at the door. "Yes," he roared, then
withdrew.

"And won't they take the table away?"

"No," he roared again. "I'd just like to see 'em!"

Esther wept harder. "Oh, I wish they would; I ought to give 'em up. I
didn't care for them after I thought--that. It was just that I had to
have something I wouldn't let go, and I tried to think only of saving
the table for the water-set."

"Come mighty near bein' no water-set," muttered Jonas to himself; then
he turned to his companion. "Young man, I guess they don't need us no
more," he said.

When he regained his sister-in-law's, he encountered that lady carrying
a steaming dish. Guests stood about under the trees or sat at the long
tables.

"For mercy sakes, Jonas, have you seen Esther? She made fuss enough
about havin' that dove fixed up in the parlor, and she and Joe ain't
stood under it a minit yet."

"That's a fact," chuckled the old fellow. "They ain't stood under no
dove of peace yet; they're just about ready to now, I reckon."

* * * * *

And up through the lane, all oblivious, the lovers were walking slowly.
Just before they reached the gap in the wall, they paused by common
consent. Cherry and apple trees drooped over the wall; these had ceased
blossoming, but a tangle of wild-rose bushes was all ablush. It dropped
a thick harvest of petals on the ground. Joe bent his head; and Esther,
resting against his shoulder, lifted her eyes to his face. All
unconsciously she took the pose of the woman in the Frohman poster. They
kissed, and then went on slowly.

Cordelia's Night of Romance

BY JULIAN RALPH

Cordelia Angeline Mahoney was dressing, as she would say, "to keep a
date" with a beau, who would soon be waiting on the corner nearest her
home in the Big Barracks tenement-house. She smiled as she heard the
shrill catcall of a lad in Forsyth Street. She knew it was Dutch
Johnny's signal to Chrissie Bergen to come down and meet him at the
street doorway. Presently she heard another call--a birdlike
whistle--and she knew which boy's note it was, and which girl it called
out of her home for a sidewalk stroll. She smiled, a trifle sadly, and
yet triumphantly. She had enjoyed herself when she was no wiser and
looked no higher than the younger Barracks girls, who took up the boys
of the neighborhood as if there were no others.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13